Free The Secrets of Jin-Shei by Alma Alexander Page B

to run into them. She took her time. Something was going on here, she could smell it, and her curiosity was twitching at the undercurrents like acat watching the mousehole for movement. Her first circumnavigation yielded no Yulinh and no Yan. Other people were standing around, their own devotions obviously interrupted, whispering softly to one another and looking faintly puzzled, and one serene-looking girl of about her own age sat on a bench in the gardens, contemplating the fish meditatively But there were no answers.
    Until, on her second circumnavigation, now prowling restlessly in search of clues rather than her family, Khailin happened to come in line with the girl on the bench again. The girl rose to her feet as Khailin watched, took a few awkward steps to reach a paved pathway of one of the corridors leading through the Circles, and then collapsed in an ungraceful heap as her leg appeared to give way beneath her—almost precisely as an honor guard of acolytes had passed by that particular spot in advance of a man clad in a rich robe and looking like he walked in power.
    Every instinct in Khailin quivered at the sight of him. Here was the embodiment of the knowledge she was seeking. It clung to him like an invisible cloak.
    How she knew this she did not know, but she watched hungrily as the man bent to raise the crippled girl—for her foot was crippled, Khailin was close enough to see this clearly—and then guide her gently to a seat in the garden, allowing her to subside onto it. They exchanged a few words, very low, too low for Khailin to make out—and then he bowed lightly to the girl and signaled to his escort of acolytes, who moved forward once again. Khailin maneuvered herself closer, and was in earshot when a young acolyte came hurrying up to the girl in the garden.
    That was Lihui, the Sage Lihui.
    Khailin’s family was part of the inner Court. She knew of the death of one of the Nine Sages, and of his successor. Nobody had yet seen Lihui in the Palace; it was rumored that he was waiting for the Autumn Court, at which he would be formally presented to the Emperor, to mark his official entry into society.
    And he had spoken to this plainly dressed, crippled child.
    What had he said to her? Who was she? How was it that she had caught the eye of one of the most learned and most powerful men in Syai—just by choosing the precisely correct moment to collapse on the path at his feet?
    Khailin did not know who this girl was, the one on whom fortune had smiled here in the Great Temple under the eyes of the Gods.
    But she would find out. She would make it her business to find out.
    In the meantime, she turned and left the Third Circle, rejoining the buzzing throng in the Second where the passing of the Sage was still being loudly and gleefully discussed. Yan had a particular favorite among the lesser spirits of the Second Circle, an ugly little figure made of mud and rushes; it was at this shrine that Khailin hoped to find her missing family. The provenance of this deity, and thus his power and his ability to accede to prayer, appeared to be a mystery to everyone Khailin knew, including her own mother—but the hideous little effigy of the unknown spirit obviously had more worshippers than just Yan because his altar was always overflowing with offerings. Nobody ever saw anyone actually place anything on that altar, or admitted to it, which had made Khailin say to Yan once, baiting her little sister deliberately, that it was a distinct possibility that the little spirit simply worshipped himself. But Yulinh had thought the idea sacrilegious and had made her displeasure at such remarks plain.
    Now Khailin wore a small smile as she went in search of the mystery spirit’s shrine. She thought she might have at last—finally—found a use for the ugly little thing. She’d light an incense stick in front of the mystery god, and ask him to help her solve a mystery.
    Help her find the crippled girl.

Eight
     
    N hia